Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A long irregular strip that is cut or torn off.
- n. A small amount; a particle: not a shred of evidence.
- v. To cut or tear into shreds.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To cut or tear into small pieces; also, to cut or tear pieces from.
- To tear into pieces, either small and irregular, or long in proportion to their width; tear into ragged bits, scraps, or strips: as, to shred old linen.
- To prune; lop; trim, as a pole or a hedge.
- n. A bit, scrap, fragment, rag, or strip made by cutting or tearing up something: used specifically of cloth or list for nailing up plants.
- n. Figuratively, a bit; a particle; also, something that is like a scrap or fragment in being worn or valueless, or in having a forlorn appearance.
Wiktionary
- n. A long, narrow piece cut or torn off; a strip.
- n. In general, a fragment; a piece; a particle; a very small amount.
- v. To cut or tear into narrow and long pieces or strips.
- v. obsolete, transitive To lop; to prune; to trim.
- v. snowboarding To ride aggressively.
- v. bodybuilding To drop fat and water weight before a competition.
- v. music To play very fast (especially guitar solos in rock and metal genres).
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A long, narrow piece cut or torn off; a strip.
- n. In general, a fragment; a piece; a particle.
- v. To cut or tear into small pieces, particularly narrow and long pieces, as of cloth or leather.
- v. obsolete To lop; to prune; to trim.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a small piece of cloth or paper
- v. tear into shreds
- n. a tiny or scarcely detectable amount
Etymologies
- Old English screade (from which also screed), cognate with German Schrot ("small shot") and Old Norse skrydda ("shrivelled skin"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English shrede, from Old English scrēade. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Stick a few receipts on the inside, and then shred from the folded end first.”
From The Tips Box: Coffee Spending Permanent Ink | Lifehacker Australia
“As they wrap themselves in the Constitution they mean to shred, that is the self-evident Truth the Tea/GOP Party ultimately cannot face.”
The Huffington Post: Harvey Wasserman: The Tea Party/GOP Would Hate Our Actual Founders
“I just bought the 30 day shred, which is just 20 minutes of intense craziness, and am having troubles fitting it in, but 4 minutes there will be no excuse now, damn!”
“Of course I couldn't recall a shred of what the sermon was preaching, other than a on-screen list of unpardonable sins”
“I did not have a physical reaction; no, I would not give anyone in the mental health profession any shred of evidence (if you will pardon the terrible pun on shred, which is what happened to the body of the individual fish-being I consumed) to credit some psychological theory about my meditation experience.”
“His defence lawyer does not have to call a shred of evidence.”
“The secret is after you 'shred' them, nuke em 'in the microwave for about 5 minutes to cook the potatoes, then brown them in the skillet.”
“I doubt Biden will "shred" McCain's impenetrable wall of POW-ness.”
McCain: It's "Honorable" To Want To Lose The War In Iraq Out Of Political Ambition
“Called CBL Data Shredder, this executable program provides a variety of destruction techniques to completely "shred" your data, making it inaccessible to anyone who gets their hands on your old PC.”
“That's what they're supposed to do, kind of shred it piece by piece.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘shred’.
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Imprecise Units of Measurement
A list of terms for units of measurement that are less than exact, such as dessert-spoonful.
two shakes, dessert-spoonful, a pinch, a bit, some, smidge, smidgin, dollop, drop, fleck, smack, sprinkling and 187 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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2nd part
prelude, ample, escalate, prototype, accession, acquisition, archives, zealot, indict, verdict, intimidating, timid and 454 more...
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UK Usage - Find US Equivalent
All these terms have a (different) American English equivalent. Wonder if you can identify them?
abridgement (abri..., accoutrement, accoutre, acknowledgement (..., opposite, advert, adaptor, adapter, sticking plaster, advertise, adviser (advisor ..., adze, aesthete and 1196 more...
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Not Much
smidgeon, iota, scintilla, dab, bit, trace, touch, soupçon, crumb, dash, drop, whit and 19 more...
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Pseudo-edge
The middle-aged corporate marketer's version of a teen lexicon.
ultimate, extreme, chillin, totally, bling, karma, stoke, smooth, flav, punch, ish, hype and 46 more...
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The Most Beautiful Words in the Engli...
mellifluous, obscure, star-crossed, undulating, solstice, messiah, audacious, solace, twilight, wanderlust, lovelorn, byzantine and 219 more...
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bearfax december 2006
opulent, spot, kaffee, sift, cedar, pushy, buckwheat, zydeco, chemeketa, hood, blood, food and 107 more...
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Activated Phonemes
This list was generated by first taking a letter from the alphabet, or any of the initial cluster set of phonesthemes compiled by the ingenious Benjamin Shisler) and then sticking one of the suffix...
bing, ding, ging, jing, ling, ming, king, ping, ring, sing, ting, wing and 189 more...
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Guitarist's Glossary
frets, fretboard, neck, peghead, headstock, tuners, tuning machines, strings, bridge, tremolo, whammy bar, sound hole and 201 more...
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the hotlist
short, sweet, epic, catchy, sassy, sexy & sizzling.
( personal list, randomness )
more:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/...zing, epic, win, fail, hot, warp, times, clip, onyx, wonky, pwn, leet and 1493 more...
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S
splice, slink, spree, slovenly, shred, swashbuckling, skylark, silver-tongue, subsensible, short-sightedness, sneer, spur and 4 more...
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Name Suggestions for Ultra-Compact Cars
A companion list to Name Suggestions for Even Bigger SUVs and Trucks. :-)
Sounds best when you preface each word with "the."speck, iota, minute, mote, dot, jot, mite, molecule, particle, smidgen, morsel, scintilla and 64 more...
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small
Tweets
Looking for tweets for shred.

dailyword We would do this to old medical records. Jul 26, 2012